“Gangnam Style” rapper: Sorry about how those lyrics about killing U.S. soldiers and their families “could be interpreted”

posted at 7:49 pm on December 7, 2012 by Allahpundit

[I]n 2004, a Korean missionary was captured in Iraq by Islamists who demanded that South Korea not send troops to aid America in the war in Iraq. Seoul refused to negotiate and the missionary was beheaded. The result: massive protests throughout Korea against both Muslim extremism and the U.S. military for indirectly bringing this fate upon a Korean missionary.

As part of the protests, PSY and several other popular Korean musicians put on a live performance of a Korean rock band’s song “Dear American.” When PSY’s turn came, he rapped:

Kill those fucking Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives
Kill those fucking Yankees who ordered them to torture
Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers
Kill them all slowly and painfully

According to MTV, the word he used at the time was “bitches,” not “Yankees,” but the intent was clear enough. Today, having earned untold riches in part by penetrating the lucrative bitch/Yankee media market, he’s sorry. Kind of:

“As a proud South Korean who was educated in the United States and lived there for a very significant part of my life, I understand the sacrifices American servicemen and women have made to protect freedom and democracy in my country and around the world.”

“The song in question – from eight years ago – was part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two Korean schoolgirls that was part of the overall antiwar sentiment shared by others around the world at that time. While I’m grateful for the freedom to express one’s self I’ve learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted. I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused anyone by those words.”

“I have been honored to perform in front of American soldiers in recent months – including an appearance on the Jay Leno show specifically for them – and I hope they and all Americans can accept my apology. While it’s important we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that though music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology.”

He did indeed perform for the troops on Leno’s Thanksgiving show; skip to 3:25 of the first clip below and watch him do the horse dance with full military backing. That looks twice as surreal today as it did then and it looked darned surreal at the time, but his PR team will use it to full effect to buy him some forgiveness with the public. He’ll get leeway too from the fact that he is, after all, the goofy horse-dance guy. A musician known for more introspective work would be held to full account for his political opinions but this is a bit like finding out that LMFAO thinks 9/11 is an inside job. (They don’t. I’m speaking hypothetically.) Between that and the fact that he apologized, sort of, for how the song “could be interpreted,” Obama’s spokesman felt safe enough to say this afternoon that O still plans on attending the upcoming TNT benefit concert at which Psy is scheduled to perform. Fearless prediction: That’ll change if people are still talking about this on Monday, not so much in terms of POTUS’s attendance as Psy’s.

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If this Psy idiot just changes his “lyrics” to “just air-raiding villages and killing civilians” then he’ll fit right in with the Indonesian Dog-eater. They can even share a Portuguese Waterdog for dinner.

Would that be the same South Korea that wouldn’t be around today if it weren’t for America?

changer1701 on December 7, 2012 at 7:53 PM

Yep. It would be the same South Korea that gave the most despicable demonstration of a nation without any honor when they hosted the Seoul Olympics and made transparent home-town cheating an Olympic sport, itself … which they won. The same South Korea that has its politicians try to show who hates America more every time they have an election.

I’m all for pulling our troops and letting the North run right through them. Let them have the paradise that North Korea has. They deserve it.

To put this in perspective, this song performed as a protest for Americans running over two teenage Korean girls walking home from school.

Turn the tables then. What if a Korean national ran over two American girls in the US? Would it be understandable for a country music artist to perform his latest hit song asking Americans to go and kill and torture Koreans? Would it be acceptable for that song to be widely played by Americans?

Turn the tables then. What if a Korean national ran over two American girls in the US? Would it be understandable for a country music artist to perform his latest hit song asking Americans to go and kill and torture Koreans? Would it be acceptable for that song to be widely played by Americans?

At an improvised performance? Country music needlessly confuses the issue. If Eminem said something like that after a South Korean tank ran over two 14 year old girls walking home from school in Detroit? No one in the US would blink twice.

Some of the criticism here may be a bit harsh. Personally, I’ve become quite Anti-America of late, for different reasons of course. I am against this new iteration of America, this transformed America, the one of takers instead of makers, of whiners instead of diviners, the one of fraud instead of God. Actually, I hate America in terms of what she has become, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Yes, for the first time in my adult life, I am not proud of this country. And if I did a rap song right now, it could not be printed even in Rolling Stone or Mother Jones.

Put yourself in his place, would you be mad enough to spout some hyperbolic lyrics at a improvised protest march?

smorpheus on December 7, 2012 at 8:18 PM

I really don’t care about “his place” and his lyrics were well beyond mere hyperbole. Frankly, I only got roped into watching 30 seconds of his stupid video, once, so I don’t really care much about this guy or what he does. I can’t understand what anyone finds interesting about that video, to begin with.

As I wrote above, this PSY idiot is no different from the Indonesian Dog-Eater, who campaigned on the idea that we were “just air-raiding villages and killing civilians” in Afghanistan. They are both anti-American pieces of sh#t with little talent (none, at all, for the Indonesian Imbecile).

But, hey, PSY would fit in great with this White House. He can rap about how “we pray for the day when white will embrace what is right”.

Mehh. He was a 26 year old kid trying to break through on the KPop scene 8 years ago. He studied in liberal Massachusetts. Between the Korean deaths in Iraq, the deaths of the two girls(and subsequent acquittal), and a perception that the Bush Administration was taking its eyes off North Korea…there was a lot of anti-American sentiment going on in South Korea 8 years ago.

I’m not going to condemn a kid in his 20′s for outrageous song lyrics. He seems to have learned some humility in those 8 years.

I interpret it as this guy wanting American troops and their families to die horribly.

Jim Treacher on December 7, 2012 at 8:27 PM

Meh. I interpret is more as “Imma gonna pander to you so buy more albums” along the lines of the Dixie Chicks and all those other morons that say garbage that they have no idea of what it’s really about in order to seem cool to the audience.

Is it weird that I think less of him for this planned concert with Obama than for those lyrics several years ago?

I mean both are pretty stupid. The lyrics show ignorance and insensitivity toward a war that had little to do with his country. It’s feigned badassery which most rappers do…

Buddying up with Obama though effectively tells me that he endorses the destruction of America and its values. There’s no justification for being unclear on what Obama supports by now; agreeing to any association with him is far less forgivable at this point.

Free speech. Whatever. People say some of the worst stuff possible. I look at at it like whatever.

What I find despicable about this is that it takes just something from 04 and trying to bring down someone very popular. Like his music or not, hes popular. Its not like he was sitting in a church for years listening to anti American cr*p.

Learn for forgive and forget. For those of you all mad, dont give him your money. I doubt most of you wouldn’t anyways regardless.

Some of the criticism here may be a bit harsh. Personally, I’ve become quite Anti-America of late, for different reasons of course. I am against this new iteration of America, this transformed America, the one of takers instead of makers, of whiners instead of diviners, the one of fraud instead of God. Actually, I hate America in terms of what she has become, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

I’m on the same boat you are, but my grandfather served in Korea so I still hate this guy… you can still love that America.

I am a freaking Korean popstar. I sell recordings in Korea. The fact that some English college radio station picked up on my song and the YouTube video went viral is in no way anything more than that. I am a performer. If getting myself pregnant would help me sell more copies of my music, I would figure out how to do that. Next week I will be getting married to one of my backup dancers and then divorcing them a week later. I am also taking driving lessons from Lindsay Lohan.

As for Hot Air, you are hardly my target audience. I perform for my target audience (see above). When Toby Keith talks about “booting ass” it sells millions of copies. That is all I want to do to. After all, those lime green polyester dinner jackets are expensive.

So, in conclusion, I am not really sorry. I am just a meat puppet who sings and dances for your entertainment. Now, piss off while I count my millions.

It seems young Koreans hate America while in general the Japanese like us. We bombed the latter and liberated the former. Doesn’t really make sense.
IR-MN on December 7, 2012 at 7:53 PM

Young Koreans do not hate the United States. I think it is shocking and disappointing that Allahpundit would post that inflammatory second video here. You could post a similar video from almost any country, including the UK or Canada or Australia. Why is Allahpundit making this about Koreans in general?

Having said that, of course that rapper needs to be shamed to hell for those lyrics, even if the lyrics were from years ago. That apology will not do.

Having said that, of course that rapper needs to be shamed to hell for those lyrics, even if the lyrics were from years ago. That apology will not do.

bluegill on December 7, 2012 at 9:57 PM

Well as I see it, maybe Allahpundit figures that the most effective way to shame a Korean is to rattle the cage of enough Koreans to do it themselves, which would be far more effective than only us Yankee B-itces, who should all be slowly killed, doing it.

It seems young Koreans hate America while in general the Japanese like us. We bombed the latter and liberated the former. Doesn’t really make sense.

IR-MN on December 7, 2012 at 7:53 PM

No, it does. The only way they will learn about what’s right is when we pull our military support from them. Doesn’t look like these morons understand what “freedom” means. Education may be a great thing when done right.

Not that I am surprised with the invite the idiot got from Azzhole, what really surprised me was a no invite for Hamas, Hizzbollah and Boko Haram. That’s news.

Free speech means the guy can’t be prosecuted or persecuted by government officials for the reprehensible words he sang/rapped/whatever. It does not mean he can’t be publicly and privately shunned by Americans who find his words to be as wildly offensive as they actually are.

But…ummm…remind me again how this is different than Rev. Wright’s rants against America? Or the average comments by liberals about conservatives?

HotAir.com posts NOTHING on Pearl Harbor Day to commemorate the horrific Japanese surprise attack on the American Naval Fleet in port at Pearl Harbor leaving 2,402 Americans killed and 1,282 Americans wounded — many of them civilians.

Pathetic.

This website has gone to crap ever since Michelle Malkin sold out to the highest bidder.

Actaully about 36,000 of those “Yankees” died, some horribly, roughly 60 years ago so that this jackass could someday prance about to derivative dance music, and inexplicably make millions.

…..which is a heck of a lot better than being worked to death in by Dear Leader some Godforsaken coal mine in Camp 22, where the only dancing he would be doing would be if one of the guards decided to have a little fun with a sub-machine gun.

PSY you want to be forgiven?-be a man and head down to the Korean War memorial in DC and meet some Korean and Iraq War vets, or their surviving family members and apologize and thank them for their service, from which you have directly benefitted.

Who cares? It’s a guy who performed Gangnam style. He apologized. I’m not going to go apopletic over anything he says because putting any credence in anything he says may be taken as he hurt your feelings and you are lashing out (from a liberal’s perspective). Let’s let him enjoy his first amendment rights and let him acknowledge he may have been wrong. Hollywood, in general, is treasonous and this guy is not. Move on, people, nothing to see here.

i have a few friends from S. Korea. Great guys. One of them was over for Thanksgiving and he mentioned psy and how he had gotten in trouble a few years back over something to do with the military. I took it to mean that it was regarding his own service in the military (S. Korea has compulsive service). Maybe this is what he meant.

1. Free speech. Everyone should be free to say what he thinks and what he feels, including PSY. If he said something against ud, then it’s allgood for both of us since, at least, we knew how he felt back then.

2. He’s sorry now. Good. PSY has really a sense of good value called “gratitude”.

3. So many here at HA are really paranoid. If one person said something against us, does not mean that his entire country really feel the same thing toward us. NO.

Stop being so negative about foreigners. Try to reach out. Because of that, people around the world have poor understanding/appreciation what the American conservatives really feel and believe in. This is the reason why Democrats are so loved by the rest. If we don’t consciously do something about it, 90% of all the immigrants in the future will always turn out to be liberal Democrats.